


Virulent Tides

by Neonbat



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Broken Wall Sam, Case Fic, Dean gets briefly homophobia checked, Gen, Gruesome Imagery, Hurt Dean Winchester, Lucifer in Sam's mind, MIA Cas, Norwegian Mythology & Folklore, Post Season 7, Sam Winchester-centric, Transient mythology, race against the clock
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-10
Updated: 2018-11-10
Packaged: 2019-08-21 10:23:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,402
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16574666
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Neonbat/pseuds/Neonbat
Summary: In the aftermath of losing Castiel to the Leviathan,  Dean and Sam try to take their mind off things the only way they know how. With Sam's wall broken, Dean is trying to keep them both together as they scout a hunt on the Maine coast. Something ancient and foul lurks in the cold waters, plaguing the town's people and wracking up a body count.





	Virulent Tides

**Author's Note:**

> Hey all! This was pretty fun since I'd never written a casefic before, so, here it goes!
> 
> Check out kuwlshadow's art, isn't if fucking amazing!? I'm still blown away, I just can't even. I LOVE IT SO MUCH.
> 
> special shout out to TeaNinja for betaing, best bestie ever.

  
  
  
  
  
  
The sharp tang of salt was heavy in the air, even this far inland. It had been a long ride up from Virgil, South Dakota to Dunrich, Maine, but even Dean had to admit a break from the summer heat of the southern states was a blessing. The weather just touched on the side of balmy but was far more bearable than the brain-melting heat they’d encountered killing a group of Shifters out of Laredo, Texas.

 

“Says here that there are a few survivors in the hospitals.” Sam shuffled into the squat motel, plopping his bag down at the foot of one of the beds without looking up from his phone. 

 

Dean took a moment to stretch the past twelve hours out of his back and shoulders, groaning low as a series of pops danced up his spine. These long treks weren’t growing any kinder on his back but he’d rather hobble around like an old man than buy a damn butt-pillow as Sam suggested. His Baby was comfortable enough as-is. 

 

“Thought they were all vaporized?” Dean kicked the door closed and set his own duffel bag down, rooting around for his toothbrush. A day and a half of drive-thrus and gas station hot dogs chased with a slushie had left a wicked carpet on his teeth he was itching to get rid of. 

 

Sam glanced up, lips thinning as he puffed a dull sigh through his nose. He should have known Dean hadn’t really been listening. Ever since what happened with Castiel, Dean was more restless than a tiger in a small cage. Didn’t help that they were waiting for  _ something _ to happen, the air too thick, too heavy. His own mental state was shaky at best, but he was trying by sheer force of will alone.

 

“No, Dean, they were… plagued? According to eye-witness reports of the victims, it was like they got hit by a disease of biblical proportions. A doctor says it’s acting like a mixture of radiation poisoning, regular gut rot, and bacteria just eating away at the victims. It sounds pretty gruesome.” Sam set down his phone, scratching at the singular spot on his wrist he’d worried for the past three hours. 

 

“Sam,” Dean’s sharp retort stilled his hand. Sam glanced down, seeing the lazy trail of blood ooze from the irritated patch no longer than his thumbnail. ”You got ringworm or something?” Dean smirked, but the cocky tease didn’t reach his eyes. 

 

Sam was getting a little tired of Dean looking at him like that. A fragile glass poised on a pin-tip, waiting for a stiff wind to tip him over. 

 

Tugging down his shirt sleeve, Sam stood. “Allergies, I guess. I’m going to grab a shower before we eat. Figure out a game plan?” He ignored Dean’s eyes following him as he escaped to the bathroom, hoping that the hot water might chase away the fuzz growing at the corners of his mind. 

 

Dean sighed, tossing his toothbrush back into his toiletry kit and resigning himself to teeth-carpet for a little while longer. He sat heavily on his bed, toeing off his boots. Pursing his lips, he puffed a deep breath and slapped his hands to his knees. “Look… I know this is a long shot, I get it. We saw —  Fuck, Cas, we saw what happened but, hey, when does death ever stick, right?” Dean swallowed, trying to ignore the burn that was accumulating at the back of his throat. ”So just, dude, if you’re still there, just… let us know. It was messed up - everything was - but—“ 

 

“Fuck,” Dean sighed, flopping back on the bed as the shower gurgled to life one thin wall away from him. When had praying ever worked?

 

They were going through the motions here, even he knew that, but what else could they do? He just wasn’t the type to sit there with his thumb up his ass and wait. While they were waiting for the rope to fray and drop the anvil on their heads, people were dying.

 

People were always fucking dying. 

 

* * *

 

 

Fog rolled in from the east shore, dimming the warmth of the dawn. Dean hunkered down in his jacket, thankful that they had forgone the suits. Pretending to be plain-jane reporters on the strange occurrences was a hell of a lot easier than playing the dog-and-pony-show that came with faking law enforcement. It might cut them off from a few sources, but this case was so widely known at this point that secrecy was out the window. Dean doubted Sam was even capable of holding it together long enough anymore to fake the badge. 

 

He stole a glance at his baby brother as Sam finished up the rest of his oatmeal, the faint rattle of his jittery knee hitting the underside of the table unnoticed by everyone save Dean. Sam always fidgeted these days, keeping his body in motion as if he was ready to leap up and go full tilt at a moment’s notice. The bad days, Dean could swear Sam was looking at someone he couldn’t see. 

 

“You take the hospital, I hit the fields?” Dean suggested, wanting to direct Sam off towards what he deemed the ‘safer’ option. It was unlikely that whatever had been spewing a plague around the place would be at the hospital when the two incidents had happened closer to the coast-line just out of town.  

 

Sam glanced up from his last spoonful, eyes narrowing faintly. “Yeah, I guess.” He’d concede that he  _ would _ be the better choice to send to a hospital to talk to the dying victims, but Sam couldn’t shake the feeling Dean was doing this for other reasons. He couldn’t quite argue, but it didn’t stop him from wanting to.

 

“Don’t do anything stupid, wear gloves and a face mask.” Sam ate his spoonful and chased it down with his orange juice, grimacing at the saccharine bite of sub-par juice. “The first spot is about a mile out of town, towards the coast, supposed to be around an old barn. The second one is closer, in the middle of a field off mile marker twenty.” Sam quickly texted Dean the directions, as if Dean couldn’t look them up himself from the news reports. 

 

Rolling his eyes for the fifth time this morning, Dean hogged down his last few bites of eggs and polished off his coffee. ”Got it.” Dean stood, hesitating a moment. The keys weighed in his pocket, but there was no alternative. ”Hurry up, I’ll drive you.” He tossed a ten dollar bill on the table and jerked his head toward the door.

 

“I can just walk, it’s not that far, Dean,” Sam grumbled, looking balefully at a piece of toast he didn’t really want. Dean was being even more pushy than usual. 

 

“Just… meet me at the damn car, “ Dean scowled, stalking off towards the bathroom, intent on a piss break if Sam was going to sit there and dawdle over toast. 

 

The crunch felt like ash on his tongue, but most foods were lackluster these days. Sam didn’t want the headache of Dean trying to force feed him if he lagged, so he was making an attempt under Dean’s watchful eye. 

 

Something slithered against the back of his mind, and Sam shuddered, dropping the nibbled bread to his plate. 

 

“Can I get you anything else, hun?” The kindly waitress nearly startled him out of his skin, ”Sorry there! Didn’t mean to scare you to death,” she chuckled, her wrinkled face creasing even deeper as she slapped a crepey hand to his shoulder. 

 

A wane smile on his lips, Sam wiggled out of the booth and stood, adding a few more dollars to shore up the tip. ”Guess I was just daydreaming. You have a nice day.” Sam smiled a bit broader, determined not to seem the nervous wreck he was. 

 

The crisp in the morning air had warmed while they ate, and Sam took a moment to gather himself outside as he waited for Dean. For the third time this morning, Sam checked his phone, though for what he didn’t know. Signs of yet another apocalypse, he guessed. Whatever had taken over Castiel’s body was making waves, but he knew this only was the beginning. Things never stayed small for them anymore. 

 

_ “And to think, that all started with you Sammy-baby!” _ A cruel laugh echoed in the corridors of Sam’s mind.

 

He picked at the scab from last night, hunching his shoulders against the ghosts of his mind. 

 

“Ready?” Dean stepped out of the diner, wiping freshly washed hands on his jeans. 

 

Sam gave a small sound as he slipped into the car, tugging down his sleeve over the lazily seeping wound against his arm. He didn’t need one of Dean’s lectures right now. 

* * *

 

 

The nurse looked at him dubiously, hands braced against the nurse’s station. Her frizzy dark hair had partially fallen from the bun gathered at the back of her head, and she looked on the late end of a long shift. 

 

“A reporter, huh? Hasn’t there been enough of those?” ‘Chelsea’ grumbled, her name tag crooked on her purple scrubs. 

 

Sam plastered on his friendliest smile, shifting his shoulder bag with hunched shoulders that looked vaguely apologetic. ”Maybe, but we’re really trying to dig deep here, look at all angles. All these others kind of gloss over it don’t they?” Sam leaned a little, banking on his perpetually boyish looks to grease the wheels. Dean might be able to flirt his way into any situation, but Sam had many years to perfect using his own body to his advantage. His height caught people’s attention, but making himself seem unthreatening despite it was what really helped in situations like these.

 

She eyed him a moment, and sighed, “I don’t know if she’ll want to talk, she’s not doing great. There is only one victim that is taking visitors, go on to room one-fifteen and be polite. Poor thing has been through hell and—“ Chelsea frowned lightly, thinking better of continuing, ”You’ve got ten minutes, not a minute more. The woman needs her rest.”

 

Sam hated hospitals, but then again, who really  _ liked _ them? He eased through the halls, the acrid scent of sterility and subpar food clinging to his nose. Too many times had the Winchesters been forced to resort to these places, only to duck out as soon as the infirmed was able to be mobile. Not like they’d ever had insurance. Once all of John’s money ran out, they’d been lucky to get antibiotics unless they were in dire straits. 

 

He’d learned how to sew stitches when he was ten years old, his small hands had been advantageous when Dean was growing into his teenage body. 

 

Swallowing down bitter memories, he gently knocked on room one-fifteen. 

 

“Come in,“ a voice croaked from inside, barely audible over the sound of game shows on the ancient hospital television. Only the nurse addressing the occupant as a woman gave Sam a clue to the person inside, otherwise, the ruined voice that beckoned him would have been indiscernible. 

Sam steeled himself, unsure what he was walking into. ”Hi there, I’m so sorry to disturb your rest but—“ Try as he might to gird himself, he wasn’t prepared for the pitiful sight that greeted him. The woman looked like a shadow of a person, only humanoid in her shape and the thin, tangled mass of what little hair remained on her pocked scalp. Her yellowed skin was a macabre painting of blisters, ulcers, and burns, blooming every color a human body was capable of, and a few Sam had been unaware were possible. Her skeletal hands shook as she reached to guide a long straw to her cracked lips, a trickle of blood dribbling down her chin from a corner’s deep split.

 

“ — I am with the Daily Candor and I was hoping to get your story, in your honest words, about what has happened here.” The horrors he’d seen in his young life fortified him enough not to let the sudden tide of nausea swell in his stomach seeing her piteous form, but only barely. 

 

His eyes briefly pivoted to the dry-erase board, “Mrs Munez correct?”

 

Gloria Munez shifted in the bed, thin mouth curling into a semblance of a smile. ”Got a strong stomach, don’t you, kid?” She wheezed past her oxygen mask, fingers curling to beckon him close. “People haven’t picked over this enough… huh?” She reached to tug the mask down to her chin. 

 

“Well, other papers and publication sites have certainly published  _ their _ version of what happened, but I’m more concerned what you have to say.” Sam’s genial smile was shaky at best as he gestured to the lone chair, “May I?”

 

Gloria stared at him a few moments longer with sallow eyes that had once been a rich mocha brown, “Might as well, days are numbered as it is. Least I get to see something pretty before I go,“ She wheezed a thin chuckle that flashed her few remaining teeth, gums as blistered at her skin. 

 

Sam fished for his phone to set it on the table to act as a recording device, “Mrs Munez—“

 

“Gloria, doll, not a ‘Mrs’ anymore.” She motioned weakly to the paper on the table, the obituaries.

 

He blanched, “I’m —  I’m sorry for your loss.”

 

“Don’t be. Be joining him soon enough.” She shifted once more, trying in vain to chase the ghost of comfort. “Name?”

 

“Daniels, Kyle Daniels.” Sam smiled softly, hands tightening on his knees. This was usually where he’d go to gently pat his hand against a person’s arm, but Gloria was so frail looking he was afraid he’d do more harm than good.

 

‘ _You sure that’s what it is Sammy?’_ **_He_** sneered at the back of Sam’s mind,’ _You sure it’s not just because she looks like you left a gummy bear in the sun?’_ Harsh laughter built within and Sam sucked in a steadying breath. 

 

Gloria’s eyes studied him a moment, “Clock is ticking,” She coughed, fishing a sodden tissue from her bedside to spit red-tinged mucus into its depths.

 

“Can you tell me what happened? As you saw it?”

 

“You won’t believe me.”

 

A smile a little more sure settled on Sam’s lips, soft and understanding, ”Try me, I’ve heard a lot of things, and know a hell of a lot more. Please, even if it sounds crazy, tell me everything.”

 

She took another shallow sip from her straw. Her body stilled, and for a terrifying moment, Sam thought that he should fetch a nurse.    
  
“It came out of the sea.” She started, fingers gripping the stark white hospital blanket. ”It had been a nice day, good for a bonfire. Sun was setting, everyone just… running around.” Her filmy eyes grew distant, “Probably had a few too many. David did, but he always did at get-togethers; the point of them, right?” Her breath wheezed in her lungs, wet and thick, ”Heard something weird, like a… like hearing a cat shrieking in a tin can on top of a wood chipper. Horrible, evil sound.”

 

Sam reached to tug the tissue box closer as Gloria soaked her first tissue through with spittle. 

 

“At first, didn’t know what in the name of Christ was happening, just a lot of water and the screaming.” She shivered, hunkering in her layered blankets. “Happened so… so fast.”

 

He sat forward, “Can you tell me what it looked like, Gloria?” Sam pressed, but immediately knew he’d pushed too hard, too fast. 

 

The heart monitor began to beep in earnest as Gloria’s sunken chest heaved sharply, “I-it was the devil!... the devil!” She managed through ragged coughs, redder than sputum. 

 

The room burst into sound as monitors wailed, Gloria coughed, and hideous laughter roared in a dark corner of his mind. All he could do was stare as blood soaked the balled-up tissues, and a few more strands of brittle hair fell onto the sheets from Gloria’s head. 

 

Two nurses burst into the room, one rushing to right the breathing mask over Gloria’s mouth, and the other hauling him up with surprising strength by his bicep.

 

“I told you not to rile her up! Out!” Chelsea hissed, shooing him from the room before he could manage a proper apology, and towards the elevator. “I’m done with journalists, reporters, all of you lot! Get out and leave these poor people alone!” 

 

Sam slouched in the elevator on the way down, blinking his eyes closed. 

 

_ “Kinda gross, wasn’t she?” _ His voice was close beside him,  _ “Kind of reminds you of that time- oh when was it, year eight? I should have kept a scrapbook! ‘Sammy and me, Hell adventures’. Let’s leave Michael out if it, he was no fun.” _

 

Sam’s hand trailed to his arm, and he tore at the scab until blood welled under his nail. By the time the elevator dinged and opened to the ground floor, he was blessedly alone, with only his memories to haunt him.

 

* * *

 

 

Watching Sam half-heartedly pick at his drive-thru salad almost put Dean off his sandwich. Almost.

 

“What’d you find?” Sam asked, nibbling at a piece of lettuce to dim Dean’s appraisal. After recalling the hospital visit he wasn’t feeling up to his Caesar salad, not with Gloria’s pain so fresh in his memory. 

 

Dean chased his bite with a wash of soda, more syrup than fizz. “Fuckin’... weird, man.  Everything was just black in both spots, just nuked. Some bits were just gross dirt, others dried out weeds. And it  _ stunk _ , not like demon funk, but —  shit, okay, remember when we were kids and dad parked us in a motel next to a paper-plant? That funk? Okay, it was like that, but throw in a month old dead fish and skunk-butt.  _ That’s _ what it smelled like.” He shuddered, finishing up his meal despite the vivid description that put Sam off the rest of his. 

 

Swallowing, Dean continued. ”Couple of melty, gooey animals too, guess they got caught in the cross-hairs. Thought about picking some up but they smelled so funky I didn’t want them stinkin’ Baby’s trunk up. Still got that blood clean-up to do from all those goddamn hoop-snakes.”

 

Dropping his containers in the garbage, Sam leaned back against the Impala, scenting the faint breeze that swept down the mostly empty street. “Guess we should head around the docks? Gloria said the thing came out of the water, so maybe the fishermen saw something.”

 

“Cool, old-salt stories.” Dean crammed a few more fries into his face before chucking the rest after Sam’s trash. He’d pretend he didn’t see the mass of lettuce and chicken still left in Sam’s discarded takeout bowl. He wouldn’t be able to get jackshit done if he kept worrying over Sam while they were doing this. Even if he was justified. 

 

Why the hell had Cas left them with this— Dean bit the inside of his lip, ignoring the rush of nausea that always came with remembering  _ that night _ . The night his best friend had all but kicked them in the balls then had the nerve to up and die on them.

 

His sandwich and fries sat like lead in his gut, and no amount of scowling was making it better. 

 

He slammed the driver’s side door a little harder than necessary and hit the lone road towards the wharf.

 

In retrospect, they should have known walking up to a pack of greying sailors puttering around their fishing vessels wasn’t going to be met with enthusiasm. There were certain groups that were always leery of strangers, and most of those had to deal with older working-class men that had known each other since childhood. 

 

“Reporters, huh? Seen a lot of them around, none of them had time for the lot of us though.” One of the men smirked, leaning over the docks to spit into the sea. 

 

“They didn’t have time to ask decent people much of anything, wrote us off as loons.” Another huffed, shoving his calloused fingers down into his pockets. 

 

Sam and Dean squinted, relying more on reading mouths than anything else. Sam was better at puzzling out Northern accents than Dean ever was. Call him a cowboy at heart but Dean had always been fonder of the southern drawls.

 

“Well, that’s why we’re here.” Sam offered, and they put on their best ‘good ol’ boy’ smiles. 

 

Dean glanced around at the handful of fishing vessels, seeing a few more people mill around on the decks, or hop the sides to see what all the fuss was about.

 

“You all see anything?” Dean asked, zipping up his weathered leather jacket. The sweeping breeze off the choppy water bit at their skin, cool air salted to sting.

 

The men chortled, eyeing each other as if they were being addressed by toddlers. “Well, yeah, we saw something! Damn demon been cropping up along the coast for as long as I can remember… never gets that far away from the water though, till now.” There was a small hum of agreement behind the first man. 

 

“Demon?” Sam’s voice sounded strained.

 

“Yep, well, probably. Goes by a different name depending on where you are, came from—“ The second man motioned towards the sea vaguely, “Some say it followed settlers way-back-when from their mother country. Who knows. Goes by the Nuckelavee now.”

 

Dean swallowed the instinctive chortle, “That’s uh… name alright.” 

 

Eyeing him, one of the sailors continued. ”Best respect it, boy. Before now, it ain’t done nothing more than wilt up crops or make people sick for a bit. This? This is new.” 

 

“Heard of an attack when I was a boy, had some people shaken in the hospital puking their guts, but none of them  _ died _ .” A third mumbled, tugging his battered coat tighter around his pudgy body with a shiver.

 

Sam nodded, finishing up his notes. ”Can you think of anything that has happened that maybe would have escalated the attacks?” 

 

He was met with a chorus of negative sounds grunts and hums, and they reached the end of their information pool. “Well, thanks for talking with us, appreciate it. We’ll let you get back to your boats.” Sam’s smile put-on smile looked genuine to outsiders, but Dean knew better. 

 

They’d crossed half of the gravely patch of dirt that made up a makeshift parking lot when a shout from the wharf paused their retreat.

 

“Hey! Hold on,” A young man in well-worn cover-alls and a thick jacket jogged up to him, dirty blond hair plastered down by his vibrant orange knit cap. “You’re—you’re asking questions about the nuckelavee, right?”

 

“Yeah, why, you know anything?” Dean asked while doing a squinted once-over as if that might help discern the kid’s intent.

 

Pain wrote itself over the man’s tanned skin, and he shuddered a little deeper into his layers. ”Yeah, I, uh, I know a bit. Can we talk by your car?” He back-glanced, eyeing the group of fishermen that were still eyeing them with thinly-veiled curiosity. “My name is Jonah.”

 

“Nice to meet you, Jonah, and yeah, this way.” Sam took the lead before Dean could make a biblical joke at the expense of the poor kid’s name.

 

Once they were by the Impala, a bit of Jonah’s jitters faded. ”Thanks, I know they’re all good guys, but you never know, you know? You two seem alright, but if it’s all the same to you, could you leave my name out of any article? My dad, he’d… he’d flip his shit.”

 

The brothers shared a look, brows quirked in a mirror of shared confusion. “No problem, Jonah, but what exactly are we keeping quiet on?” Sam hesitated.

 

Jonah seemed to wilt from the outside in, and for a dreadful moment, Dean was almost certain the kid was going to burst into tears right there in the goddamn parking lot. “S-sorry, it’s just still fresh. My… my boyfriend, Nathan, was one of the ones that got killed in the first attack and—fuck, sorry. We were supposed to be out there together and I flaked because Paul back there needed me to stay over and he was probably out there throwing shit into the water because we do that when we’re mad, you know? Just… go out there and throw rocks and sticks and yell until we feel better…” Jonah was rambling at this point, but they’d been at this game long enough to know that sometimes the grief-stricken just needed to get it out of their system.

 

As usual, Sam was the first to act. He reached out, settling a broad hand on Jonah’s shoulder and squeezed. ”That… must be very hard Jonah. I’m sorry for your loss.”

 

A hard shudder passed through Jonah’s body, and he nodded short and quick under Sam’s compassion. “Th-thanks, we weren’t out or anything, not around here, but we’d hoped… one day we could save up and head down to Boston? Supposed to be… better down there.” He sniffled a few moments more before he could scrape himself back together again, ”A-anyway, I didn’t drag you out here to just cry on you. I wanted to say th-that I know where the nuckelavee was last, where it came up out of the ocean. It was mine and Nathan’s spot. It isn’t that far off from where they’re saying the other attack was, so maybe that’ll help?” 

 

“Can you show us?” Dean interjected his minor attempts at trying to seem sympathetic disappearing in the wake of a break in the case. 

 

Jonah eyed them, “Yeah but, why would you want to go? You could get killed.”

 

“We’re journalists, it’s kind of our job.” Sam offered with a small chuckle, hand falling back to his side.

 

“You didn’t take any notes, or record anyone.” Jonah pointed out before he leaned over to look at the Impala, “I’ve never seen any reporters drive a muscle car, even up here… Besides, it’s dusk, the thing comes out when the sun sets.”

 

Grumbling, Dean ran a hand through his short hair. ”Let us worry about that, kid. Can you show us or not?” He ignored Sam’s small glare. The clock was ticking and they only had a handful of daylight left as it was to call Bobby with the information and get set up on the off chance this nuck-e-something was going to make an appearance. 

 

“I will if I can go with you.” Jonah’s request took them off guard, and the longer than sputtered and huffed, the more Jonah squared his jaw. “That thing killed Nathan, I at least want to see what the fuck did it.”

 

Another look, but at least they were on the same page. “Hell no, you want to die too?” Dean scowled, even if it had come off harsher than he’d meant it to. He got the kid wanting to get some closure on his uh… boyfriend, but that didn’t mean Dean was about to let him get melted by whatever thing was lurching from the sea. 

 

“Look, I’m going anyway whether you like it or not. I’m the one that knows where to go, remember?” Jonah crossed his arms over his chest, managing to keep his cool despite both brothers having more than a few inches on him, and a good deal of weight as well. He hadn’t been working on the fishing boats long enough to fill out just yet. 

 

Sighing, Sam rubbed at the itch of his scab underneath his shirt sleeve. ”Dean, he’s right. At least with us there…”

 

“Fuck it, fine, you want to go chasing monsters? Go ahead, but you do as we say, got it?” Dean liked exactly none of this, but they were over a barrel. Neither one of them wanted to spend the night traipsing up and down the coast hoping for a sight of the nuckelavee and risk missing it. 

 

“Meet us back here, thirty minutes before sundown.” Dean went on, already fishing into his pocket to get his phone. Hopefully, Bobby would know what the fuck a nuckelavee was. 

 

* * *

 

 

Turns out Bobby knew a hell of a lot more than the brother’s expected, which was usually the case.

 

“That’s all we got, water?” Dean groaned, leaning against the steering wheel as he dropped the phone beside him on the seat. 

 

“‘S what Bobby said.” Sam sighed, mulling over the short conversation. The only sure-fire way to control the thing was a shaky description of a Gaelic deity with no description of the how’s or why’s. The only clue they’d gotten was that it might be a fae-originated creature, and fresh water might hurt the salt-water based haunt. As cases went it wasn’t the least they’d ever went in on, but it was a lot less than what they liked risking. 

 

Dean leaned up, stirring Baby to life.”I guess we go grab some Evian and a squirt bottle and see what we get?” He smirked, the nagging sensation that they were about to walk into a big pit of Oh Fuck churning in his gut. After hearing Sam’s description of Gloria, and seeing the ruined fields, Dean wasn’t feeling too hot about going in without a few more tricks up their sleeves. 

 

Two grown men buying the biggest squirt-guns they could find in Walmart with enough gallon jugs of purified water to fill a bathtub was enough to earn them some questionable looks from the cashier. Dean figured they might as well throw a few blessed crosses and silver shavings in the guns to cover their bases.

 

Dean lowered their makeshift weaponry into the trunk, fussing with a sore spot on his lip from forgetting to buy chapstick despite Sam’s harping. “That kid is going to get himself killed,” He grumbled, voicing the worry that had been churning in his stomach since they’d left Jonah hours ago. 

 

“You heard him, Dean. He was going to go out there anyway, better that he’s with us than alone.” Sam shrugged, even if he felt every ounce of worry Dean did and more. He wouldn’t admit it out loud, but he was starting to think Dean was right about not trusting his judgment anymore. The longer Sam ignored this, the more he felt like his mind was unraveling. 

 

Huffing a short breath, Dean grumbled his way back into the Impala. “Yeah, I guess.” It sounded petulant and he knew it, but so sue him.

 

The drive back to the coast was spent in silence, not that it surprised either one of them. What else was there to say? Cas was dead for all they knew, Sam was more of a head case than usual, and Dean was going his best not to fall face-first into old vices to try and medicate the first two problems away. If Sam noticed the conspicuous lack of Dean’s tapes, he had the wisdom to keep his lips sealed. There were some things even Lep Zepplin couldn’t drown out. 

 

Jonah was waiting for them by the docks, dressed down from his fishing boat attire into something more in their wheelhouse with jeans and a thick no-nonsense jacket. 

 

“Not really what I expected,” Dean commented as they drove up.

 

Sam glanced up from his phone towards the gravel lot, ”What was?”

 

Dean shifted a little as he cut the engine, “I mean the kid… said his uh, boyfriend and everything.” He mumbled, looking out the window as Jonah busied himself riffling around in his beat-up old Ford truck. 

 

“Yeah?” Sam ventured slowly, brow slowly quirking.”You mean him being gay, or at least bi?”

 

Sam knew Dean hated these conversations. Their Dad had some shitty opinions he’d shared with them growing up, but Sam had long learned that most of what the man complained about while drunk or in one of his moods was largely bullshit. College had helped even more, but Dean… Well, Sam wasn’t sure what Dean thought about a lot of things these days.

 

“Yeah, I—Fuck, I don’t mean to sound, you know, but like.” Dean gestured vaguely, ”Guess I didn’t expect it, lookin’ at him or whatever.” Dean mumbled, regretting his mistake in letting the offhand comment slip in the first place. Of course, Sam had to make it a  _ thing _ . Everything had to be a goddamn learning experience.

 

“Dean, gay people don’t all look like tv portrays.” Sam barely resisted rolling his eyes as he freed himself from his seat belt, ”Stop watching Will and Grace reruns.” 

 

Heat bloomed on Dean’s cheeks at the call-out. It wasn’t anything he’d ever admit to watching actively, but if he could snag Sam’s laptop when Sam turned in early, well, the internet had a lot of stuff on it that wasn’t  _ all _ porn, might as well catch up on tv the shitty motel channels didn’t offer. 

 

Jonah greeted them as they made their way to the Impala’s trunk, “Thought you guys might ditch me,” he confessed, tugging a few of his messy blond waves from his eyes.

 

“You’re the one that said you knew your shit,” Dean shrugged as he tugged out his squirt-gun and tossed Sam his own. 

 

They’d give him credit, Jonah managed not to comment on the trunk full of weapons or the obvious Super-soakers for nearly ten seconds. “You guys aren’t reporters, are you?”

 

A small, mirthless smile tugged at Dean’s lips. “No kid, we’re not. So follow our lead and stay behind us. Don’t fuck around.” 

 

Picking their way down the jagged coastline wasn’t anyone’s idea of fun, not with the bitter wind kicking up from the breaking waves on the rocks below, or the hanging sense of  _ wrong _ that clung to the air like smog. 

 

Dean would have preferred not to be so far from Baby and their backup arsenal, but the Impala wasn’t anywhere close to an offroad vehicle. A few miles of this would have Baby’s alignment shot to hell and he’d be under her for a week. 

 

Jonah led them to the start of an inlet, the shoreline a ragged maw eroded by time and rough retreating ice sheets.

 

“Down there, by the breakwater, that’s where it came up.” Jonah pointed down the shoreline where the manmade breakwater jutted out from the gravel coast, a dark line in the waters of raised rocks and dirt. It was big enough where the brothers could have walked abreast down it and not tripped over each other, but it wasn’t anywhere that Dean wasn't going to risk it. If the nuckelavee came up from the water, they’d meet it with solid ground under their feet, far away from the water’s edge.   
  


They hunkered down, keeping eyes on the moonlit waters. Minutes trickled by, the fingers of the salt-tinged air creeping into their clothing, raising gooseflesh. Jonah weathered it well, used to the pervasive damp chill that came with working on a boat, but Sam began to visibly shiver after nearly a half hour. 

 

No one expected Hell to run cold. Everything was depicted as fire and brimstone, but not Lucifer. Lucifer was as brutal as arctic wind, and every hair-raising gust from the waters licked against Sam’s exposed skin, putting him back  _ there _ . A quiet, nearly unobtrusive whistling filled his eyes, camp town races, of all things. 

 

“Is now the time for whistling?” Sam grumbled, pressing the heel of his right hand against his ear. 

 

Jonah and Dean exchanged looks, “The fuck are you talking about?” Dean’s eyes narrowed, peering at Sam critically. 

 

“What?” Looking up, Sam let his hand fall. Their eyes bored into him, questioning, apprehensive. Judging. “Oh, I uh-- must have been the wind, sorry.” He swallowed, willing Dean to drop it in front of the kid. 

 

“Sam, don’t—“

 

A scream rent the air, a layered cacophony that was every inch as horrible as Gloria described. It pierced the night, wailing and screeching from the center of the breakwater. A spray of water erupted from a great wave that tore over the section of rocks, a mass writhing in the center of the pouring water. The water fell away from the creature as if shedding a mantle, leaving only the ugly bulk of the nuckelavee shifting from hoof to gnarled hoof displacing the dirt. 

 

Behind them, Jonah wretched, ”O-oh my god,” He back-stepped and tripped over a loose stone, his cellphone clattering to the ground. 

 

The nuckelavee stomped, heads swiveling towards the eroded hilltop the three hunkered on over the coast. Looking right at them, they could see the singular massive eye centered in the middle of the ‘horse’s’ head, burning red and white. A moment later the inky, skinless horror opened its maw, too large and too fanged to resemble the equine of the rest of its body. Another perversion of a horse’s neigh tore through the air, ripping up their spines as cold terror began to eat away at their gut.

 

Atop the beast’s back, a rider ‘sat’, the legless torso pitching listlessly to and fro. It was as skinless and slick as the main body, a twisted being with arms that stretched and scratched at the ground with black, chipped nails. Its sightless, bulbous head snapped its jaws, black teeth-gnashing after the prey the main head alerted it to. 

 

Before the realization of what they were looking at hit them, the nuckelavee lurched forward, broken hooves tearing over the brutal soil effortlessly. Always screaming. 

 

“Move!” Dean snapped, spurring the other two to their feet.

 

“Shit, it’s too fast Dean!” Sam snapped, back-glancing long enough to see the beast already stomping up the sharp cliff face, the rider’s hands diving into the hard sediment to hurl the main body up higher and higher. 

 

Moments like these, there was only a split second to make the call. Usually, Dean would be all for standing and fighting, but the rare instance of sirens blaring at the back of his mind said to haul ass. “Fuck, get to the Impala, something has got to nuke that thing!” Faced with that horror, Dean wasn’t about to try and squirt-gun it to death. 

 

Dean thought it a little cliché, but in those first ten seconds of frantic loping, he was confident he’d never run that fast in his life. Sam ran nearly every morning and easily outpaced him and Jonah, but at least the kid was keeping up. 

 

The nuckelavee gained, leaving a trail of sludgy yellow ooze in its wake. Dean could hear it drawing closer, the choked gasping cries of the humanoid head layered with the near avian cries of the horse’s. 

 

Sam sprang over a small ditch, landing effortlessly on the other side on long legs. Jonah tried after, but he didn’t have the other two’s height or stride and went crashing into the frigid water below with a sharp yelp.

 

Cursing, Dean tried his best to temper his speed and scrambled down after Jonah to haul him up by his jacket. 

 

“Dean!” Sam’s warning probably saved their lives, but it wasn’t enough to prevent the Nuckelavee’s plague. 

 

The creature reared on the bank of the creek, massive legs kicking up into the air, splattering blood from its naked sinew over their coats and jeans, eating through it like cheesecloth. Dean got them nearly over the bank before the nuckelavee stomped down and its face split into a gaping, macabre smile, lungs heaving. 

 

A black fog rolled out of its maw, flowing over the bank, grass, and scraggly weeds until it nearly enveloped them. The stink of rot and death choked the air from their lungs, searing them with every startled gasp. Even after Dean held his hand to his mouth and dragged Jonah from the fog, it ate away at him. 

 

Sam dashed to the side, narrowly avoiding the encroaching cloud as he planted himself on the edge of the bank, and raised the machine-gun sized super-soaker at the creature and hoped to hell that Bobby wasn’t pulling their leg.

 

A torrent of water soaked the Nuckelavee’s left flank, and immediately the creature recoiled with a sharp cry. Another blast sent it backing away, stomping and scratching at the earth. Its eye flared wide, staring at Sam with a rage as fathomless as the deepest trenches. Another sent it wheeling away, the humanoid mass on its back twisting to clack its teeth towards the three in zombie-like desperation. 

 

Behind him, Jonah fell, gasping for air as brackish yellow tendrils squirmed under his skin.

 

“Shit, shit, shit! Dean talk to me.” Sam rushed over, shouldering the gun as he tried to reach for Dean’s shoulder.

 

Dean swatted him away, swiveling on unsteady feet. His face was already grey and drawn, bright green eyes jaundiced. “D..don’t touch, it could..it could still be on us.” 

 

Helpless, Sam yanked his phone from his pocket to call an ambulance. He couldn’t risk dragging both of them back to the car, not when the nuckelavee could come back at any moment, and he sure as hell couldn’t leave them there. 

 

Dean fell to the ground a minute into the call, and Sam watched, hands quivering as he relayed where they were and a brief version of what had happened. All he had to say was there was another attack at the coast, and the operator swore. It was the first time Sam had ever heard one of them swear before and looking at Jonah and Dean sprawled on the ground, wasting before his eyes, he could understand why. 

 

_ ‘Always get left out of the fun, don’t you, Sammy-baby?’ _

 

 

_ _

 

* * *

 

 

Dawn crept up on Sam, starting the clock on Dean’s inevitable demise. According to the nurses, it took victims a few days depending on the severity of exposure. Gloria had died sometime in the night, having lingered three days with only a few mouthfuls of noxious fumes. Sam theorized Dean had about that long… Jonah on the other hand. 

 

“Wh… what’d Bobby say?” Dean wheezed, scowling at the oxygen mask that Sam refused to let him remove. 

 

Sam sank into the too-small visitor’s chair, knobby knees hitting the side of Dean’s bed. “About what I figured, fresh water seemed to hurt it, so I just have to do something with that.” He wasn’t going to tell Dean that Bobby was hopping the next flight out. It felt too much like admitting how serious this was. 

 

He’d seen Dean toeing the line before, hell, he still had stress dreams about the time Dean fried out his heart on a hunt. But this? Sam could barely look at him. Everything that made Dean  _ Dean _ was wilting. Freckles hidden under blistering sores, angular cheeks drawn and sharp as the otherworldly poison coursed through him. Worse still, was hearing what the doctors explained what was going on within. Imminent organ failure, threat of aortic rupture, muscle wasting. Systematically every system within his elder brother was shutting down.

 

“How’s… the kid?” Dean was getting tired, Sam could see it, but the idiot always put on a brave face. 

 

Sam back-glanced at the dividing curtain, hearing the shutter-wheeze of the inhalator on the other side. Without a miracle, Sam doubted the kid would live through another dawn. “He uh, he took a little more of that miasma than you did.” Dean wasn’t as stupid as he tried to act sometimes, they both knew what Sam was getting at. 

 

Dean’s jaw worked weakly, trembling fingers digging into the stark-white blankets. “Bobby sending back-up?”

 

They sat staring, eyes locked, ready for an answer one didn’t want to say, and the other didn’t want to accept. 

 

Sighing, Sam shifted in the chair. ”Dean, there’s no time. I have a plan.” An idea, more like, but it was something. 

 

Dean reached to snatch the mask off his face, ignoring the strap digging into the back of his ear that opened a cut in his fragile skin. “H-hell no, you saw that  _ thing _ . You can’t… you can’t do that alone.” Maybe Dean could trust Sam with this  _ before _ , but as he was now? He could see the look in Sam’s eyes sometimes, flung into the abyss of his brain, barely able to fight down the screaming dread. Dean felt like he’d cracked in his own time served ‘Down Below’, but being locked inside a cage with the literal Devil? There was no goddamn way Sam was as fine as he pretends to be.

 

“Stop—“ Sam got to his feet, pacing towards the window before he ended up jumping down his brother’s throat while Dean was dissolving from the inside out. “Stop acting like I’m going to hurl myself off the closest building. I can  _ do _ this Dean. I’m a hunter too, remember?” He’d wrestled Lucifer into the cage, he sure as hell could do  _ this _ . The nightmares didn’t matter. The voices didn’t matter. Sam still had a decent enough grip on reality to kill this creature before its magic could kill the only family he had left.

 

The various beeps, pumps, and distant coughing from a room over reigned, stretching into the silence between them. It was a game of wills they’d played since Sam was old enough to talk back, except this time, Dean had nothing to threaten him with. Dean just had to accept it. 

 

Dean’s sigh bled into a ragged cough that ended in him spitting up grey sputum, much to his revulsion. ”Fuckin’... gross…  _ fine. _ But I swear, Sam, don’t—“ He swallowed, reaching out to snatch for his water cup with clumsy fingers. It clattered to the floor, splashing lukewarm water across the ugly, bleached tiles. ”Shit.”

 

Sam wheeled around, hurriedly pouring Dean a new cup of water with a straw and handing it off. ”I’ll get it.” Dean hated looking weak, hated, even more,  _ being _ weak. “I’ll be careful.” He murmured, bending to sop up the spill with a few napkins. 

 

A new silence descended as they watched the creeping sunlight appear in the window, and for once, Dean didn’t roll his eyes when Sam reached out to give his hand a comforting squeeze, and Sam didn’t smirk when Dean squeezed back. 

 

* * *

 

 

Setting up his grand plan had taken a hell of a lot longer than Sam had wanted, but rigging a significant amount of explosives up while trying not to get spotted doing so was easier said than done when one was six feet tall. He’d given Dean a lot of shit about keeping explosives with them, especially when the trunk was full of bullets, but after this, Sam wasn’t going to say another goddamn word. 

 

Years ago, Sam had tried to keep his hands as clean as possible while hunting. He didn’t want to follow in other Hunter’s footsteps of ripping off credit cards and sticky fingers, but it was just too hard to operate under the radar without toeing into the grey area. He’d been living so far in the grey area these days that he didn’t bother leaving a ‘Sorry!’ note when he lifted the dirtbike from someone’s backyard. It was a necessary evil, one the town’s people would overlook once this was all said and done with. Besides, the Impala wasn’t exactly the kind of vehicle he needed for the sheer dumbassery he had planned.

 

Waiting for sundown while Dean and Jonah sat wasting away in the hospital was one of the hardest things Sam had to do in his life. He kept up a constant stream of texts when Dean was awake, squinting through typos from shaking fingers, and fighting down the urge to puke up his coffee once the doctor called and started talking about final arrangements or notifications. They were just doing their job, but Sam couldn’t help but hate the doctors and nurses in those moments. It felt too much like they didn’t think he could do it, either. 

 

A phantom weight settled against his shoulders as Sam hunkered down near the inlet, the purple-orange paint strokes of dusk filling the sky. 

 

_ ‘Dunno Sam, you seem  _ **_pretty_ ** _ nutbars to me right about now. Can’t decide if you’re ignoring me, or you really think I don’t exist! After all those special moments we shared. You wound me Sammy.’ _ His voice never got any easier to listen to, even when Sam knew Lucifer was just the byproduct of his fractured mind. 

 

Gritting his teeth against the cruel chuckles filling his ears, he dug around in the dirt until he found a jagged rock he could grip until the points dug deep enough to drown out the laughter. 

 

“You’re not real. I have to save Dean. You’re not real—” He kept up the mantra until the sunset, plunging him into starry darkness that would have been beautiful if not for his grim mission. 

 

The sound of the crashing waves was deceitfully calming, blanketing his apprehension in a layer of sensory bliss. The ambient swell of ocean water was enough to momentarily soothe the raw, gaping tears left in his mind to a dull throb. 

 

It was nearly midnight when the familiar eidolon neigh split the night’s calm. It heaved onto the breakwater once more, splintered hooves kicking up jagged stones as the nuckelavee shook out its spectral mane of inky, matted hair. Without an immediate target, the creature trotted slowly towards the shoreline, at times running on the surface of the briny waters.  Watching the humanoid shape of its ‘rider’ sway upon its back disgusted Sam to a degree he wasn’t used to after so many years of hunting. The raspy chittering of the bloated head could be heard even over the hundred yards of shore edge and rocks separating Sam from the creature’s line of sight. The rider jerked on the horse’s back, swaying back and forth with its maw gaped wide, the pitch within endless. Searching.

 

Sam waited until it was at the bottom of the eroded shoreline before he pumped the shotgun and stood. “Hey!” He aimed and shot, unloading a spray of buckshot into the nuckelavee’s heads and turned tail before the creature’s lungs could bulge with its outrage. 

 

He threw the shotgun down, settling over the dirtbike hard enough in his rush he knew he’d be sporting a bruise on his inner thigh tomorrow. In the second it took him to fumble for his jerry-rigged key in the shape of a filed down screwdriver jammed in the ignition, he said a silent thank-you to the elder brother laid up in the hospital for teaching him the tricks of the trade Sam had never wanted to put into practice. Life had other plans.

 

By the time the nuckelavee pulled itself over the side of the small cliff edge, Sam started speeding off into the open field towards the town’s edge. His heart pounded in his ears, and the engine roared underneath him, but over that he still heard the wailing screaming of the malevolent creature thundering behind. The closer they neared towards civilization, the more apparent it became that there was a threat of someone getting caught in the crosshairs that Sam hadn’t considered before in his rush. 

 

Cursing, Sam cut his speed, closing the gap between him and the nuckelavee by a few yards until the screeching rang against his eardrums. 

 

The rider dove forward, abnormally long arms reaching far past the horse’s sinewy head. Sam felt acidic blood splash against his jacket from the being’s skinless hands, the sizzle of the denim being eaten away lost in the chase. 

 

Another yard and Sam had to duck to avoid its clawed strike that nearly unseated him from the bike completely. He spared a brief glance behind as the creature’s muzzle lolled wide, bearing rows of jagged, boxy teeth nestled within the grotesque equine mouth. 

 

Sam slammed on the throttle once more, and he gained enough to keep him from the Nuckelavee’s jaws and keep its interest for a few minutes longer. 

 

He led it on a winding path skirting around Dunrich’s town limits until the neon light of a few glow sticks Sam had tied to the middle of an ancient water tower dotted the horizon.  The instinct to slam the throttle towards safety tightened his hands around the grips, but he maintained. He would only get one shot at this, and he didn’t want to do it too soon or risk his neck any more than he already was.

 

The nuckelavee chased him still, unaware that Sam was leading it towards a low, wooden tower rigged with a remote detonator Sam was glad Dean had geeked out over when deciding on what explosives to keep on standby. The life of a hunter could feel like a cartoon sometimes, just with more blood and less happy endings. 

 

Flattening himself to the handlebars to avoid one of the lower anchoring crossbeams took Sam speeding underneath the tower, threw a spider’s web, and out the other side. Behind him, he heard the Nuckelavee whinny and gnash its teeth as it had to abruptly slow to avoid plowing into the wood planks and start to wheel around to dash around the structure. 

 

Sam hit the detonator, and the tower blew in an eruption of wood, metal, and more importantly, fifty thousand gallons of pure, treated water. Despite how fast Sam cranked the throttle, the force of the water was just too much to keep going. The initial burst of water hit him, and he went tumbling, the rush of water his downfall and saving grace all at once providing enough cushion in his fall to keep him from slamming to the ground in a broken heap. 

 

The shrieks crescendoed into the night, reaching a fever pitch as the Nuckelavee swayed and bucked, trying to shake the fresh water from its unprotected skin to no avail. It shuddered, and the humanoid body clawed, bit, and raged atop of it as the water began to melt away its flesh, burning away the fetid muscle as sure as acid tore through human flesh. 

 

By the time Sam roused himself from a bog of debris and mud, the nuckelavee was nothing more than a puddle of foul-smelling ooze tinged with a toxic oil-slick. 

 

“Never… watching the Wizard of Oz, again.” Sam breathed with a delirious chortle, tempted to pass back out into the grass in a bloodied, but very much alive, heap. The sirens that replaced the nuckelavee’s cries convinced him otherwise. 

 

* * *

 

 

“You what?” Dean was sitting up as the clock turned to eight in the morning, digging into a pile of what Sam assumed to be scrambled eggs. 

 

Sam shifted uncomfortably, the bandages he’d applied in a haphazard rush in the motel room pinching at his skin. “I blew up a water tower. It’s dead.” He repeated for the fourth time, and Dean snorted a wheezy laugh. 

 

“Holy shit, Sam! Did you use the detonator? How’d it work?  _ Fuck, _ I can’t believe I missed that!” Dean was more animated, sweeping a faintly quivering arm to and fro as he lamented not seeing his favorite purchase in action. Doctors said the mysterious sickness that was tearing through Dean’s and Jonah’s body had started to lessen during the night, and by day break, Dean had been grumbling about his catheter and wanted to eat the house down. 

 

A few steps away, Jonah coughed, cracking a wane smile as he sipped at a milkshake he’d puppy-eyed from a nurse. “T..Thanks Sam.” Despite his improvement, Jonah would likely be affected by this ‘til the end of his days. Damaged lungs, damaged internal organs, and the list went on, but he was alive, and that had to count for something.

 

Sam looked back at Dean as his brother ate, noting the few times he cleared his throat or fumbled to reach for something, and he wondered what scars Dean would carry from this as well. 

 

“Bobby has already landed, so he’ll be here in a few hours to ‘kick your ass’, his words.” Sam snickered at Dean’s sudden look of dread.

 

Groaning, Dean flopped back in his bed with a small wince. ”Traitor,” he grumbled, finishing off his buttered toasted and scattering crumbs all over the place. 

 

It was another case dealt with. Another close call in a sea of many, and they were no closer to finding out if Cas was truly dead, or what the Leviathans were, but they’d survived another day… So yeah, maybe that would have to count for something, because it was all they had. 

 

It was all they ever had. 

 

**Author's Note:**

> For more information, requests, or updates, go to: http://neonbat666.tumblr.com/ and search #Neon-writes or #Neon Writes


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